A Tip for the Hangman by Allison Epstein
Length: 374 Pages
Genres: Historical Fiction, LGBTQ, Mystery Thriller
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Trigger Warnings in this book for Blood, Gore, Violence and Homophobia

Kit Marlowe has always been a figure that has played around my peripheral--I knew he was an Elizabethan poet and playwright, overshadowed by contemporary Will Shakespeare (though at the time he was what we would now call quite the celebrity), and that he was most likely gay. But when I spotted this beautiful cover I was immediately intrigued, even more so once I found out it was about Kit's supposed spying for the Crown. In all honestly, I was expecting this book to be on the dry side and was really pleasantly surprised! It's all the fun and danger of Jason Bourne wrapped up in the glitter and dirt of 1500s England.

Christopher Marlowe, called Kit, is the poor son of a shoemaker with a wit and talent far beyond his meager beginnings. At Cambridge, he finds himself shunned by the other students, who are almost exclusively rich lordlings. Out of his few friends, his closest is Tom Watson. Kit wishes they were even closer. However, the politics and favoritism of school is soon left behind when Kit is approached by Sir Francis Walsingham--principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth and spymaster. He has seen potential in Kit, and with that potential comes money. What Kit doesn't realize is that he will lose something in exchange for all that he gains--his soul.

This is a spy tale with heart. Kit is young and brash and charming, with a quick tongue and even quicker brain. I felt the excitement when he broke codes or narrowly avoided discovery, and all the heartbreak of his love for Tom, who is pulled into the Crown's schemes because of Kit. For lovers of the period, you will find many familiar faces within these pages, far beyond Shakespeare and Walsingham--there is Mary, Queen of Scots (Kit's first mark), actor Edward Alleyn, famous spy Robert Poley, and Sir Robert Cecil, too.

Please check this one out if you're interested in the time period, but be sure to bring your tissues! Kit is as wonderful and wicked as he was in real life and you'll be sore to lose him.

Book Review: The Woman in the Mirror by Rebecca James

The Woman in the Mirror by Rebecca James
Length: 368 Pages
Genres: Gothic Horror, Historical Fiction
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Trigger Warnings in this book for Miscarriage, Forced Institutionalization, Parental Abuse, Suicide, Relationship Between an Adult and a Minor (A girl and her teacher. Not Graphic.), Forced Adoption, Blood and Murder

It always delights me to discover a new (well, semi-new) gothic being published, as that's the genre of my heart and also the one I'm currently writing in! The Woman in the Mirror is full of delightful and well-done genre-conventions that will make a gothic lover's heart sing!

In 1947, Alice Miller has been hired to be a governess at the Cornish estate of Winterbourne. It is just after the war and she is eager to leave London, the Blitz, and the untimely death of her fiancé far behind her. There, she meets the enigmatic Captain Jonathan de Grey, left scarred and with a limp from the war, and his cherubic twins, Constance and Edmund. Only, things are not right at Winterbourne. The previous Governess left mysteriously and abruptly. The Captain is loathe to speak of the death of his wife, whose life and sudden end hangs over the estate like a shadow. Alice wants nothing more than to be a balm to the children who so need a mother, and perhaps, find a way to the Captain's heart, but she is thwarted at every turn by something sinister, jealous, and hundreds of years old.

In modern day New York, Rachel Wright is the head of a newly-opened gallery and the lover of a famous entrepreneur--yet it's not enough. All her life, Rachel has felt displaced, hollowed-out by the knowledge that she doesn't know where she came from. She is adopted, you see, and knows nothing of her biological parents. But that is about to change, because Rachel is told that she has inherited a isolated Cornish estate--Winterbourne--from an unknown aunt. Driven by questions that she is both afraid and desperate to answer, Rachel leaves everything behind in New York to go to Cornwall and discover her past, and possibly her future. But whatever stalked Alice all those years ago has not grown weaker with time and is ready for fresh de Grey blood.

This is a story that would be perfect for Halloween--it's full of foggy Cornish weather, an angry witch, a portrait that changes constantly and all sorts of things that go bump in the night. Rebecca James writes beautifully and it only adds to the dark spell The Woman in the Mirror will cast on you. If you're looking for a recently published work along the vein of the classics Rebecca or The Turn of the Screw, this will do just the trick!

Book Review: Book of Night by Holly Black

Book of Night by Holly Black
Length: 306 Pages
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Trigger Warnings in this book for Violence, Gore, Familial Abuse, Parental Neglect, Mentions of Incest and Mentions of Drug Addiction

“There'd always been something wrong with Charlie Hall. Crooked, from the day she was born. Never met a bad decision she wasn't willing to double down on. Had fingers made for picking pockets, a tongue for lying, and a shriveled cherry pit for a heart. If her shadow had been one of those magic ones, she was pretty sure even that thing would have run away.”

I've spoken before about how much I love Holly Black's works. The Folk of the Air series is one of my favorites of all time, and before that, when I was little, I was obsessed with The Spiderwick Chronicles. They were some of the first books that I just devoured, usually reading one a day, and I of course loved the artwork of Tony DiTerlizzi (and yes, I was disappointed by the movie). So in a way, I feel that Holly Black shaped who I am today, contributed to my love of dark fairytales, mythology, and even parts of my creativity. There just weren't books out there to feed my fascination like The Spiderwick Chronicles did! So of course, I was thrilled to bits to find out she would be writing her first ever adult book, and my sister lovingly preordered it for me! And as always, Holly Black did it again, weaving something together that will both mesmerize and break your heart.

Charlie Hall is known as "The Charlatan", an expert thief and conwoman who has made her name stealing, mostly priceless tomes from "gloamists". Gloamists are people who can do a special sort of magic, able to command their shadows, to make them change into fantastical shapes, or slip through the smallest crack to find out dirty little secrets. Now, after a brush with a gun, Charlie has decided to go the straight and narrow, and works almost exclusively as a bartender. But the lure of fast money and the thrill of swiping something right from under someone's nose is still there. She wants to be good, for her new boyfriend Vince, who has mysteriously lost his shadow, and for her sister, Posey, who craves a quickened one more than anything.

Unfortunately, trouble seems to be drawn to Charlie. There is the mysterious death of a rare book dealer, his shadows torn to bits--his last known sighting? The bar where she works. When she sticks her nose in it, it ends in her being harassed at her work by a gloamist who's looking for a special book and a special person. Vince comes to her rescue, killing the gloamist as easily as squashing an ant. There are secrets that Vince is keeping, about his past and his present, ones that Charlie will do anything to discover--even if it breaks her heart in the process. Thus begins a tale of blood-fed shadows, dark cabals, and proof that revenge is a dish best served cold.

This book was a beautiful blend of horrific fairytale and gothic mystery, which is nothing less than I've come to expect out of Black. Full of her wonderful, biting prose and characters that are so perfectly rendered they feel real, I couldn't wait to find out all the secrets in this book, but loved every minute it took. I recently described Holly Black as the queen of writing "bad girls", and she has done it again in Book of Night. Charlie is a loveable hard-ass with as much bite as her cocktails, but has that sort of vulnerability you can easily lose with characters like this. All I can say is read it--it's the urban fantasy you've been waiting for.

Book Review: Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown

Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown
Length: 512 Pages
Genres: Historical Romance, Romantic Suspense
Rating: 4 out 5 Stars

Trigger Warnings in this book for Violence, Graphic Scene of Rape and Assault

I've been hearing tell of a romantic thriller set in Texas during the Prohibition which also contains a cowboy hero with a heart of gold and a hairy chest (my own kryptonite), so of course I had to pick up Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown! Don't be frightened by the heftiness of this book, it is long, yes, but also packed full of amazing details of the time period which really make the setting come alive. As a born and bred Texan I also delighted at seeing some of our more dialectal phrases being used e.g. being on someone like a "duck on a junebug"! It was no surprise to me that Ms. Brown is a true Texan as well.

Thatcher Hutton has mustered out of the army post-WWI and is traveling home to the ranch where he works via hitching rides on trains. When a brawl with some hobos, ornery after losing money to him in a card game, forces him to jump from the train, a little worse for wear, he happens upon a shack. He stops for water, to ask for directions to the nearest town, and just so happens to meet Laurel Plummer, a young widow.

Laurel is still reeling after the abrupt suicide of her husband. Left with a newborn baby, she has no one to turn to, except her father-in-law, Irv. He doesn't have much, but he cares for her and the baby as best he can. When Thatcher appears, Laurel can't deny the instant attraction and electric connection they have. But Irv is suspicious of Thatcher because, secretly, he's running an illegal moonshine business and the law is sending in agents to pick through them like vultures over bones.

Thatcher has, unfortunately, arrived at a very bad time. The local doctor's young wife, heavily pregnant and hated by the locals for being a German, has gone missing--right after talking to him. With murders happening left and right, a moonshine war brewing and all sorts of seedy shenanigans running deep in the town, Thatcher and Laurel must decide which side of it all they're on and hopefully not kill each other in the process.

I really enjoy historical romances that move beyond just the romance, that feature a cast of authentic and highly readable characters, that informs you as much as it titillates! This book was full of action, but also emotion, and contains not only a smart female character but a kickass hero who will not only be a gentleman but a law unto himself should Laurel get hurt. Fans of westerns as well as romances would enjoy this and I love how it's in a sort of unusual time period for a western--most are set in the 19th century, at least in my experience. Highly recommend!